1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronic appliances such as digital camera, digital camcorder and PDA (portable digital assistant), and a touch panel device
This application claims the priority of the Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-049955 filed on Feb. 26, 2003, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
2. Description of the Related Art
The conventional touch panel using GUI (graphical user interface) has displayed on the display screen thereof buttons the user is to touch directly by the finger or the like for making a selection. Since the user does not actually push any mechanical button, however, he or she cannot perceptively operate such touch-panel buttons. Thus, with the conventional touch panel, the user frequently fails in correct operation or input. For solution of this problem, there has been proposed a technique by which each of on-screen buttons is shaded or otherwise processed for a stereoscopic appearance and the position of the shading is changed when the user pushes the button so that the user will feel as if he or she actually pushed a mechanical button (as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application No. 1994-32065, for example).
With the above solution, however, a button larger in area than a user's finger should be provided for a user's easier viewing of the on-screen the button the user pushes, which will lead to an increased area occupied by the button on the display screen. Therefore, the above technique is not applicable to a touch panel having a limited area of display. Also, a small button will entirely be hidden by the finger of the user pushing the button. The conventional touch panels cannot be said to be friendly to the users.